If you ever board a flight and find your seatmate pulling out an e-cigarette, you’re most likely within your rights to ask a flight attendant to halt the “vaping.” This, despite a claim on a website called “Electronic Cigarette Consumer Reviews” that suggest it’s OK to smoke an e-cigarette aloft if you’re sneaky about it.

“Vaping” ought to be as verboten as regular smoking on an airplane, I think, and most major airlines agree. But despite a move years ago by the Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration to issue a blanket rule, the agencies tossed the question to airlines.

Today most if not all US airlines ban the smoking of e-cigarettes, though some pro-smoking web sites such as BluCigs.com suggests you ask each airline. To its credit, the site also suggests your ask your seatmates if they mind, adding that perhaps when they learn more about e-cigs, they’ll decide to join the club.

You’re permitted to carry your e-cig paraphernalia in your carry-on baggage, as long as you comply with the three-ounce rule for liquids. One pro-e-sig site says you might be able to get away with smoking in a lavatory, but then adds, “But we didn’t tell you that.”

Right. Because vaping can set off an airplane lavatory smoke detector. Why the FAA can’t issue a firm rule is beyond me.

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Rudy Maxa, one of America’s premier consumer travel experts, is host and executive producer of public television’s “Rudy Maxa’s World,” the Emmy Award-winning, travel series featuring 91 television episodes on the world’s great destinations as diverse as Korea and Argentina, and from South Africa, Tuscany, and Thailand. His television episodes also air in 121 countries in 22 different languages on Travel Channel International. You may view episodes on Create Travel too.Public radio listeners will remember “The Savvy Traveler,” a show Rudy hosted before he transitioned to television. Today, he hosts America’s #1 travel radio show, “Rudy Maxa’s World,” which has a weekly audience reach of approximately 1.4 million upscale leisure & business travelers via 250+ commercial radio stations, TuneIn.com, active social media platforms, online streaming, and more.Rudy is an award-winning writer with National Geographic Traveler and a former Washington Post investigative reporter and columnist whose writing was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. He is also a fascinating and informative speaker on the subject of travel today and speaks extensively around the world. If you’re interested in booking him to keynote your event, send your request to rudy@rudymaxa.com.Rudy writes a regularly published e-newsletter that contains personal observations, travel tips, anecdotes, and deals. It's free. If you’re interested in receiving it, please subscribe under the E-newsletter tab at the top of this page, and you will be added to its distribution list.
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